Career Research in 5 Minutes: What is 'Career Resilience,' the Ability to Deal with Career-Related Difficulties?

Quite a few months have passed since I entered graduate school and started my research.
In the course of my daily research, I often encounter interesting theories and insights that seem useful for everyday life.
However, at the same time, I have felt frustrated that concepts and practices I find interesting are unknown to people who do not do research, and that such insights are often not applied in real life.
Therefore, this academic year, I would like to periodically introduce my own research and papers that I have found interesting to read.

What is Career Resilience?

For this first installment, I will introduce the concept of "career resilience." Simply put, career resilience is the ability to deal with difficulties related to one's career.

When I go out for drinks with peers and juniors who have started working, I often hear things like "It's tough being transferred to a department I didn't want to be in at all," or "I'm working as hard as I can in my own way, but it's painful because I'm not seeing results." I myself have also had times when I couldn't write a paper well and hit a wall.
At times like these, what becomes important is career resilience, which is defined as follows.

"An individual's ability to adapt to changes in the environment and deal with negative work situations (Noe et al. 1990)"
"A psychological trait that functions to deal with risks that threaten career development and to promote career development when facing them (Kodama 2015)"

Components of Career Resilience

Career resilience consists of various personal traits and abilities. Dr. Kodama of Hiroshima University lists the following five as the elements that make up career resilience.

Problem-solving ability: Problem-solving ability refers to the ability to adapt to changes in the environment and the ability to think of the next step without getting depressed when in trouble.
Social skills: Social skills refer to sociability and the ability to interact with others with empathy.
Novelty seeking: Novelty seeking refers to an attitude of liking new and unusual things, and a trait of enjoying taking on various challenges.
Future orientation: Future orientation indicates being able to have hope for one's own future.
Help-seeking orientation: Help-seeking orientation refers to the ability to treat others with compassion.

What are the benefits of having high career resilience?

For example, when facing a difficulty such as "it's tough being transferred to a department I didn't want to be in," people with high career resilience take actions like the following to recover from the "tough situation."
・Think about what to do to get into the desired department in the next transfer (Problem-solving ability)
・Consult with colleagues at work about the transfer (Social skills)
・Take an interest in the duties in the new department (Novelty seeking)
・Have hope that although it might be tough now, I will be working happily in three or five years (Future orientation)

Research using psychological scales to clarify the effects of career resilience is also progressing.
Research on gaps after employment: It is said that new employees are prone to shock when they start working due to the gap between the ideals and expectations they had for the workplace and reality. This shock is called reality shock.Career resilience is an effective ability for dealing with this shock, and it has been confirmed that people with high career resilience tend to be less likely to experience this shock (Kodama 2015b).
Research on promotions and transfers: It is known that promotions and transfers are accompanied by psychological burdens, and it has been clarified thatthe higher the career resilience, the less likely one is to feel shock or anxiety about promotions or transfers (Kodama 2017).

Summary

1. There is a concept called "career resilience" as the ability to deal with career-related difficulties.
2. Career resilience consists of five elements: problem-solving ability, social skills, novelty seeking, future orientation, and help-seeking orientation.
3. Having high career resilience makes one less likely to feel shocked by negative events at work.

As examples of when career resilience becomes important, I cited "it's tough being transferred to a department I didn't want to be in at all" and "I'm working as hard as I can in my own way, but it's painful because I'm not seeing results," but if you are struggling with career-related worries, thinking about what kind of actions people with high levels of the five components of career resilience would take might clear up your confusion a little.

Next time, I will summarize ways to increase career resilience.

References for those who want to know more
Makiko Kodama (2015a) Examination of the construct of career resilience and development of a measurement scale. The Japanese Journal of Psychology, 86(2): 150-159
Makiko Kodama (2015b) The relationship between career resilience and reality shock experience - Targeting first-year full-time employees. The 79th Annual Convention of the Japanese Psychological Association
Makiko Kodama (2017) The role of career resilience in career crises arising from changes in job content. The 81st Annual Convention of the Japanese Psychological Association
Noe, R.A., Noe, A.W., Bachhuber, J.A. (1990) An investigation of the correlates of career motivation. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 37(3): 340–356